A Basis for Achieving Economic, Societal and Environmental Goals in Illinois

The
objective of the Program is to provide credible information on climate and air
quality, including their variability, change and impact, as a scientific basis
for decision makers to select optimal pathways to achieve future economic, societal
and environmental goals in Illinois.
This will be accomplished through better understanding and modeling of the
critical processes that affect local climate and air quality. The Program will
address four key scientific issues: the causes of historical climate and air
quality variability, the potential future changes in frequency and intensity of
severe weather and climate events, the potential future changes in air quality,
and quantitative assessment of the societal implications.

One central
effort of the Program is to project climate and air quality variations at
scales that are crucial to Illinois
human activities and natural resources. These variations are determined not
only by local geographic characteristics, including topography, hydrology, land
cover/use, and gas/aerosol emissions, but also by remote large-scale anomalies
through planetary atmospheric circulations. The physical processes and
underlying mechanisms are scale specific and no single model is capable of
simulating all important processes. Thus, it is essential to develop an
integrated Climate, Air Quality and Impact Modeling System (CAQIMS) to
incorporate realistic information flows between different scales of dynamical,
physical, chemical and societal processes. The
CAQIMS includes not only global and regional components, but also modules for
local processes and impacts. Read More about CAQIMS